


Counting Stars

by samiwinchester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse, Angst, Hurt Castiel, M/M, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2013-11-16
Packaged: 2018-01-01 17:38:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1046653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samiwinchester/pseuds/samiwinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Maybe Castiel didn’t die in 2014. It’s possible Lucifer would want to punish Cas for choosing humanity over him, and orchestrated events so that Cas would survive the ambush only to find Dean dead in the garden, his mission failed. The only friend he had now gone, Cas now has to face the rest of his human life alone, and without purpose."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting Stars

You knew more or less from the moment Dean suggested the plan that one or both of you probably wouldn't make it. You also knew that Dean knew this, and that he probably planned on making it out himself, which means that you and him both recognized this road and where it was going to end. However, you found yourself unafraid of death as most humans are. You were willing to follow him to the ends of the Earth if it meant you were going to be able to at least _pretend_ you were still protecting him, somehow.

Which is why when he suggested you be a diversion, you listened. You told yourself you were a diversion that would give him a few more seconds to gain ground against Lucifer, and if your human life amounted to the the five extra seconds that allowed Dean Winchester to kill the devil, then you say it’s a life well spent.

You used to be filled with stars and galaxies that swirled in your stomach and cosmic collisions that filled your mind with matter and star dust. The world spun so quickly under your feet that you needed wings to keep yourself from getting dizzy. Looking back, this is probably the reason that you were so good in a firefight. The whirlwind of bullets and emotion was familiar, although as an angel you never had to dodge bullets from a shotgun. Not like this, at least. You watched with fearful eyes as each person in your party suffered from fatal wounds. Bullets drove through sinew and muscle tissue and tore vital organs to pieces. Blood went everywhere. The sound of shots were followed by shrieks of pain and agony. Crying and moaning filled the air and the poor infected souls kept coming. Kept shooting. Kept killing. Suddenly, you felt as though you had been filled with a zealous rage and desire for redemption. Blood pumped through your very human veins at hurricane force speeds, bullets flying from your gun so hard and so fast and in every direction because you didn't mind if you died, but these innocent people that stood in line behind you were another thing. You stood as the last man fell with a crash to the floor, a gunshot to the chest had knocked what was left of him out of his heart, and you felt something in you snap; then you were running into the hoard guns blazing and red hot rage creating a mask across your face. Even though you were shooting enough bullets to stop a stampeding buffalo the croads kept coming, swarming around you until suddenly-

They stopped. They turned around quietly as though being commanded by God, their faces went blank and their weapons fell limp in their hands. You stopped running and watched as they walked in an eerily calm manner away from the room that was filled with only the bodies of the lost. The sound of gunshots rang in your ears for several minutes and you couldn't believe that you were still standing there, alive, and when you heard yelling from outside you questioned it’s reality before running to the window to try and get a good look at what was going on below, but you could only see Lucifer’s shining white suit and a garden filled with dazzling red roses.

_"Dean"_ you whispered to yourself.

A wild panic overtook you as you ran through the building until you burst from the back doors into the garden. Hidden in the shadows, you watched as Dean from the past was there crying as he stood up to Lucifer, and with each tear the hope he held shone more from his body as though he contained a star instead of organs, and the sight of it nearly made you fall to your knees because you remember a time when _your_ Dean was that hopeful, when he was that radiant. Over the last few years, though, you had watched the star inside of him slowly fade from a supernova to a black hole, and you hoped that somehow this Dean would be able to escape that fate.

What drew your eyes, though, was not past Dean’s radiant hope, but your Dean lying on the ground motionless and still. You felt something like ice jab through the shimmering gloss of painkillers and drugs and straight through the tiny mortal heart in your chest. A voice somewhere deep inside you screamed and your mouth opened, but the world was in slow motion and no sound came out but a series of silent, painful gasps.

There was a flash of light and suddenly Lucifer and past Dean were gone, leaving only the lonely Winchester laying on the ground without any kind of visible movement. You told yourself as you moved towards him that it was not asinine to think he could be alive.

“Dean?” You whispered, lifting him by his shoulders. His neck rolled in an unnatural way and you felt sick. This was not the way it was supposed to happen. You were supposed to be the one dying for Dean. You were his guardian.

You were a failure.

Birds tweeted happily in the air like the world wasn't falling to pieces as you sat on your feet and felt the grass underneath your legs. You looked at his lifeless body and hot tears filled your eyes because he was all you had left and without any kind of warning you have nothing.

Hours passed. You threw up twice- acidic and painful and burning in your throat but you didn't care, you didn't even move. You simply sat next to Dean’s empty shell of a body like perhaps he was going to wake up and shake your hand out his and tell you to stop holding his damn hand, you hippie, but of course he didn't. Couldn't. 

You told yourself that you hated him. Sometimes you had hated him. Sometimes you had wished him dead so loudly that you were afraid that everyone had heard you screaming at him, but you had never realized how much it would hurt. You hated him but he was your everything: You had never meant it, not really. You had never intended anything less than keeping Dean Winchester alive at all costs because he was the righteous man, and he was stubborn and annoying and sometimes very stupid, but never before had you seen something more beautiful and more terrifying than the tendrils of his soul that had wound themselves like vines around your heart.

You sat there for what felt like an infinity but may have been only a few minutes or a few hours, and let the tears fall like stars from the sky onto the green earth and wishing they were poisonous or magical, but they weren't, and neither were you, and when the sun set you were still sitting alone in the grass imagining the days when you could touch men once and they would be healed.

“You absolute bastard” you whispered at the cold body in front of you. You felt the curve of his jaw and the stubble on his chin and the soft, over-washed fabric of his jacket and the tears were falling again, hot and fresh like you were seeing him lying there for the first time.

“You absolute **asshole** , Dean Winchester!” You yelled at him, “Why the fuck don’t **we** deserve a happy ending?!” The world was shattering again like a child throwing a rock at a window in a condemned building. You could almost hear his answer in your ears _“this is as happy as it’s going to get,”_ A memory that felt hot and heavy against your ear, each word like another knife being lodged somewhere in his chest.

It occurred to you that Lucifer may have set this up- a punishment for you choosing Dean and humanity over him, that he had controlled the croads so that you had remained alive and Dean had been the one to die, and you had been unable to save him. A memory of the hot rage you had felt flashed across your cheeks and then faded away. What was the point? You had no one left to protect. No one left to fight for. Only a memory of the man whose body lay in front of you and your own fragile human life that you did not care about if Dean Winchester was not a part of it.

When the sun began to rise again you stood on shaking, tired legs and searched the rose garden for a shovel. If this was going to be your purpose then so be it. Because Dean Winchester had been your everything and you were not going to let his final resting place be the rose garden where he had been murdered by the devil, and because you had nothing else left without him, and because Dean Winchester did not deserve to be left in a hot zone until the croads were wiped out and then dumped into a mass grave with the rest of the empty bodies that were still recognizable as human. Because he was the righteous man, and you were his guardian angel.

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of this post: http://redribbonrobot.tumblr.com/post/12552948595/it-occurred-to-me-that-maybe-castiel-didnt-die-in


End file.
